£10bn of benefits given to unemployed migrant households in just 18 months

Households containing at least one unemployed foreign national received £10.6bn in Universal Credit between Jan 2024 and June 2025

This research was published in the Daily Mail.

On Tuesday the DWP published data showing that the number of unemployed migrants receiving Universal Credit has increased by 55% since April 2022.

771,000 unemployed migrants were in receipt of the benefit in January 2026, up from 497,000 in April 2022.

New research by the Centre for Migration Control has revealed that households containing at least one unemployed foreign national received £10.6bn in Universal Credit between January 2024 and June 2025.

This is the first time that the DWP has disclosed the amount received in welfare by unemployed migrants.

Across the same time span, a total of £15.1bn was paid out in Universal Credit to households where at least one resident was a foreign national.

This means that 70.4% of all Universal Credit paid to foreign national households was to those containing at least one unemployed migrant.

For the calendar year 2024, a total of £9.533bn was paid to households containing at least one foreign national (non-CTA) who had passed the Habitual Residence Test. Of this amount, £6.695bn went to households where at least one foreign national was unemployed (70.2%).

In 2024, the median annual earnings for a full-time employee was £37,439 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/ashe1997to2015selectedestimates Table 2).

This would equate to a National Insurance and Income Tax payment of roughly £7,000.

This would mean that the amount of UC paid to households containing an unemployed foreign national was the equivalent of the tax and NI paid by 950,000 full time employees. (Although those households receiving UC may also contain an employed individual paying income tax and NI).

It should also be noted that some foreign nationals receiving UC and classed as unemployed may be self-employed.

In the first six months of 2025, a total of £5.587bn was paid to foreign national households, of which £3.964bn went to households containing an unemployed foreign national (70.9%).

What this means for the British taxpayer

An annual total of £6.695bn is equivalent to every household in Britain (28.6m) paying £251 just to support households containing an unemployed migrant.

It is equivalent to the starting salaries of 158,611 Metropolitan Police officers (£42,210).

It is 2.5 times higher than the combined Home Office’s resource expenditure on: Migration & Borders group, strategic operations for illegal migration, Border Security Command, Immigration Enforcement, and Border Security. (£2.608bn in 2024/25).

A single year of payments to households containing an unemployed migrant would cover the entire training of 20,474 doctors and 99,925 nurses (using University of Kent estimates of £327k for a doctor and £67k for a nurse).

What we already know about migrants and benefits:

July 2025: 1.298m foreign nationals receiving Universal Credit (759k are out-of-work)

At least 1.9 million foreign nationals are claiming some form of welfare support.

A foreign national passes the Habitual Residence Test, and becomes eligible for Universal Credit, every 43 seconds.

Migrants receive 200 Universal Credit adverse sanctions a day (198,771 between Jan 2023 and April 2025).

It is a no-brainer that we should be ending benefit payments to foreign nationals, especially those who are unemployed.

The British taxpayer does not exist to fund the lifestyle of migrants. It is unconscionable that hardworking men and women are being walloped with tax rises, and experiencing a decline in living standards, whilst billions are being wasted in this manner.

We need to end Indefinite Leave to Remain to ensure that the British welfare system only helps those who are citizens of this country.